Games I Beat In 2018, Finally Ranked But Based On Distant Memories
I recently added a page to the blog that summarizes my Game of the Year picks, which is based on the games I beat in that year that I liked most, and noticed I didn’t do one for 2018 for whatever reason. Maybe I was thinking I didn’t clear enough games to be worth it, but I’ve made some pretty short lists before. Or maybe I was just sidetracked by something else like what keeps happening in general. This list will be a bit weirder because I’m ranking games I played years back based on what I think of them now, so whatever I look back on and remember the most fondly will take the top.
- Fallout: New California (PC, Steam)
This was a Fallout: New Vegas mod. It was worked on under the codename Project Brazil and goes under the category of “overly ambitious New Vegas overhaul mods”. While there are a number of paths through the story that’s laid out, it still felt pretty linear aside from a few places that can be branched from. This mod generally turned out okay. At least it wasn’t overrun by a mass amount of controversy that I know of, or any other factors that threw the whole thing about anticipating any new major New Vegas mod to be any kind of good into jeopardy, but at least I’ve heard good things about Fallout: London, though that’s a Fallout 4 mod.
- My Nintendo Picross: The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess (3DS)
This was some kinda free reward puzzle thing from the My Nintendo program. I like Picross and this is Picross. That’s about all I can say there. I cleared the whole game over time and I like doing these kinds of puzzles from time to time. Especially if there’s the ability for touch screen controls, but I can work with buttons too.
- The Conduit (Wii)
I decided to play through one of the handful of FPS games on the system that wasn’t a hunting game or a Metroid Prime, just to see how it held up, and I remember it being pretty interesting, even if very of its time. As far as the plot, aliens invade D.C. and this one guy has to stop it with weird artifacts playing a bit into typical conspiracy theories. It’s not quite Perfect Dark or Deus Ex, but it works just fine and runs fairly well, including being able to aim with the remote. I don’t remember any severe sticking points but there may have been a couple incidents along the way. I did also play a bit of the sequel, but found how they changed the protagonist to be more of a testosterone-driven meathead like a bootleg Duke Nukem, rather than the agent of the first game who didn’t ask to be taken for a ride through the world of conspiracies similar to Deus Ex, to be a weird decision. Not that I minded as far as playing the sequel, but I forget why I stopped playing so it must have been another sidetrack thing.
- Toonstruck (PC, GOG)
I felt like playing a weird point-and-click adventure since I’ve got plenty of those. Not to be confused with Stay Tooned, a weird minigame collection thing that involves things like watching Whinefeld and skinning a cartoon cat, this one features Christopher Lloyd as the FMV protagonist in a cartoon land that he got zapped into through plot magic. The animation is pretty high quality, and there’s a number of notable actors in there in addition to Lloyd. It’s one of those cult classic things that ultimately suffered from executive decisions cutting it short and also canning any plans for a sequel with the remnants, while still being a good game in the end, and I don’t remember getting too stuck on all the puzzles at least.
- Jazztronauts (PC, Steam)
This one was a Garry’s Mod gamemode, so effectively a mod in a mod. The player character gets led into a weird heist featuring a group of four cats who want to steal everything from various maps, which are pulled from whatever ones are either already installed or can be grabbed from the Steam Workshop. While it’s a co-op game, it’s just as doable in singleplayer. After enough heists, things happen, like progressing through the storylines of the cats via fetch quests advanced by stealing certain props from maps, and eventually reaching one of a few endings before running a New Game+ sort of thing. This is just an oddly memorable thing that ended up being more of a niche classic rather than a breakout hit. And that’s just the kind of thing I’m into apparently. Also Source game mods in general, not just Portal ones, but usually Portal ones.
Now that I’ve retroactively assigned this Game of the Year, it’s time to look into other games and things, probably. Maybe demos.